


caught in a mason jar

by memitims



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Light Angst, M/M, Season 2 Coda, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-19
Updated: 2014-08-19
Packaged: 2018-02-13 21:41:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2166147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/memitims/pseuds/memitims
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ian tries to hold mickey's hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	caught in a mason jar

**Author's Note:**

> requested by **anon** as part of the [angst prompt meme](http://distractedpainter.tumblr.com/post/82169288531/another-angsty-starters-meme) on tumblr ("Don’t fucking touch me.")

They sneak out to the baseball field on another warm summer night, the moonlight flooding into the dugout in a way that illuminates Ian’s fading freckles and turns his hair to gold. Not that Mickey was looking. He wasn’t. His eyes didn’t linger on Ian’s strong, muscular frame, or on the tight stretch of his t-shirt, or his long, pale fingers. That would be fucking stupid.

Ian fucks him against the chain-link fence and Mickey tries to ignore his soft whimpers and the taste of Ian’s name in his mouth, cries on his lips that are begging to be set free. Mickey doesn’t make nice sounds while they fuck, not like Ian, but he does say Ian’s name out loud a few times, tries it out, as Ian holds his hips steady and fills Mickey up.

_Ian, Ian, Ian._

It doesn’t taste bitter like he thought it would. It’s something different altogether, it’s sweet and smooth and it makes Ian smile against his neck.  _Fuck_. Mickey’s in so deep already, he never meant to get here, but Mickey’s rulebook went up in flames the first time Ian said his name.

Ian comes with a low sound, the kind that makes something swoop way down in Mickey’s belly, and Ian curls a gentle hand around Mickey’s cock until he comes too. Mickey sags in Ian’s arms, he lets them wrap around him for a second, before he realizes what’s happening. He doesn’t let Ian hold him, that’s not a thing they do, it’s too fucking dangerous, because Mickey desperately, desperately wants to be held by Ian, and that means he can’t have it. It would ruin everything, all the walls and fortresses Mickey has constructed.

 _I’ve looked down the barrel of a gun before_ , Mickey wants to say _, and I’ve never seen anything more dangerous than you. A gun would kill me, but you make me want to be alive, and that’s the scariest thing I’ve ever heard._

They don’t lean against the fence and talk, this time. Ian leads him out onto the dying grass of the baseball diamond instead, as the summer fireflies float around him. He lays down on the grass and pats the ground next to him.

“The fuck you doin’, Gallagher?” asks Mickey, uncertainly, but he crouches down and joins Ian on the grass.

Ian laughs, open and carefree and everything Mickey cannot be. “Don’t worry about it.”

And Mickey doesn’t, because he has much more important things to worry about, like the way Ian’s eyes crinkle at the corners when he laughs, and the way something in Mickey’s chest tightens when Ian says his name, soft, like it means something, and the way Mickey is totally, unconditionally screwed. Mickey lies down next to Ian on the cool grass, careful not to touch him or look over and let his eyes linger on Ian’s profile, lit up fucking beautifully in the moonlight.

Ian tries to hold his hand.

Mickey bats him away. “Don’t fucking touch me.” His heart is racing, his fingers tingling where Ian’s brushed over them, and this whole thing is so fucking stupid.

Then Mickey thinks about Ian’s hands curled around a gun, the way he looks in that stupid ROTC uniform, Ian in some fucking warzone. Not that he’d ever admit it out loud, but Ian joining the army sounds like his worst nightmare. He thinks about Ian’s hands never touching him again, and then he reaches between them and locks their fingers together.

He watches Ian smile out of the corner of his eye. It’s his stupid smug smile, the one that drives Mickey crazy, and his eyes catch on Ian’s lips.

He wants to kiss him so fucking bad.

“Nice night,” he says instead, because making conversation helps him get his mind off kissing Ian senseless, sliding their lips together in the darkness, tasting the bitter taste of the beer they drank earlier on Ian’s mouth.

Mickey has almost kissed Ian three times. Twice in the dugout, when Mickey got so caught up in the stars in Ian’s eyes and the pink of his lips, and once in the darkness of an old, crumbling brick alley, while Ian walked him home after work and made him laugh about something ridiculous and Mickey had wanted to kiss the bright sound of his laughter right out of Ian’s mouth.

“Yeah,” Ian agrees quietly, and his fingers are heavy where they twine around Mickey’s. He’s never really held hands with anyone before, unless you count holding Mandy’s hand to help her cross the street safely when they were kids, and it makes something in his chest feel lighter.

The conversation dies out and they just kinda lie there, breathing in the crisp summer air as the fireflies dance over their heads. Mickey watches the way the fireflies blink on and off, and he thinks that he and Ian are like that. Sometimes there’s light and sometimes there’s darkness, it’s all ups and downs, and they can’t figure out how to catch one or the other. The light always blinks back on, no matter how dark it gets.

Mickey secretly hopes they’ll figure out the light.

\---

Mickey fucks it all up. He knew he would. Frank catches them and Mickey fucks up and he goes back to juvie. He realizes in one small, sad moment, inside the concrete grey walls of the detention center, that he just had the best summer of his life. He held Ian Gallagher’s hand and he didn’t want to die and then he fucked everything up.

He killed the light on the stupid fucking firefly.

Ian doesn’t visit him much this time, but Mickey watches the way he grows older from the other side of the glass, the way his smiles get dimmer and his hair even shorter. Mickey wants to touch him, but he can’t.

Mickey makes a promise to himself, as he slams down the phone receiver, the hard plastic cold against his hand.

He’s gonna kiss Ian when he gets out, he’s gonna hold his hand the way no one ever has before, and he’s gonna get that fuckin’ light back. To hell with everything. He doesn’t like being stuck in the darkness anymore.


End file.
